


a war on my mind

by kingandqueeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Oral Sex, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:56:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingandqueeninthenorth/pseuds/kingandqueeninthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Forgive me, my king, for I am confused. My brother, my king, my lover.  I cannot keep up. Shall I curtsy, or fall to my knees?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a war on my mind

Robb rarely sleeps. He wanders the Red Keep, looking down each hall in search of shadows. He expects to hear disembodied screams, or crying in the night. For all the suffering the walls have seen, the castle is quiet.

 He wonders if Eddard Stark haunts the castle. He wonders if he wants to know.

If his father lingers, he cannot feel him.

Margaery always finds him in the mornings. Her voice is gentle, her sympathies soothing. Her touch is light and warm, and she is radiant.

“I hear you pacing at night,” she says one morning, touching the shadows beneath his eyes. “Your footsteps echo in the halls.”

“My apologies, Your Grace,” he says, his voice hollow.

Her brows draw together with concern, contorting her soft features. “What is it that keeps you up at night?”

_Father. Mother. Sansa. Arya. Bran. Rickon._

“Ghosts?” She suggests softly.

“Demons,” he answers.

\---

The stag and the rose trust Petyr Baelish no further than they can throw him, and with good reason. Robb agrees that Baelish must be rooted out of the Eyrie, but he would sooner see him dead, no matter where the deed must be done. Yet Renly clings to some idea of honor and justice, and wants Lord Baelish brought before him.

Margaery suggests a valiant knight for the task, and Renly’s smile is agreement enough. Robb nods once, anxious and weary and desperate for his ruin of a home.

 _“_ Littlefinger is of little and less concern to me,” he tells them. _If Baelish is all that is left, let it be done._ He aches for whatever remains of Winterfell, however hollow and burnt it may be.

They see Ser Loras off the next morning.

\---

Robb signs his name a hundred thousand times. He agrees that all land north of the Neck will be a free and independent northern kingdom under his rule. He agrees that while the two kingdoms may be separate, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be friendly.  He agrees that the King in the North will cooperate with the King on the Iron Throne, and vice versa, when necessary. He agrees until his hand aches.

“A Stark and Baratheon friendship may once again be what this realm needs,” Margaery says with a smile as he signs his name for the final time.

He agrees.

\---

The Young Wolf rides home as Robb Stark, feeling less a hero and more a failure. He returns to his childhood home under reconstruction, and to familiar faces with the haunted eyes of strangers. He can feel the weight of their expectations upon him.

His shoulders sag, his back aches. Fatigue or sorrow, he couldn’t say.

\---

The Knight of Flowers finds nothing in the Vale. Margaery’s letter is strangely vague, and she hardly speaks of Lord Baelish at all. Only when Robb reaches the last line does he comprehend.

_My brother rides for Winterfell. Perhaps a ghost might help lay your demons to rest._

\---

He had insisted on receiving her alone, so he waits in the courtyard by himself, save for Grey Wind at his side. He keeps his eyes fixed on the gates, his heart hammering. A thousand times he had dreamt of her return, and a thousand times his heart had broken upon waking. Nothing had been the same since Margery’s letter. He felt as though he were on fire, unable to keep still for fear of the flames consuming him.

When the snow begins to fall, Robb barely notices. He can focus on nothing but the groan of the gates and the sight of Loras Tyrell riding towards him. Robb forces himself to be patient. His eyes search for her, but he doesn’t move. He digs his fingers into the thick fur at Grey Wind’s neck.

 _You’re a king, not a fool,_ he thinks to himself, wanting nothing more than to part the crowd of guards and knights and retainers with his sword just to reach her. He may be able to leave the war, but the war would never leave him. Violence and brutality are always lurking at the edges of every thought now. His sword hand aches, desperate for his ghost of a sister. He had lost enough time already, he couldn’t bear anymore.

Loras dismounts his horse before him, his expression grim.

 _I will gut you all,_ Robb thinks, walking to him. Grey Wind follows, a growl rumbling within him. Robb puts a hand on Loras’s shoulder, lowering his head to speak in his ear. He keeps his voice low, hospitality and courtesy forgotten. “Where is my sister?”

“Safe, Your Grace,” Loras reassures. His eyes follow the line of men and horses through the gates. “She will be along shortly. But I feel I should warn you…”

“What is it?”

The knight hesitates. “Your sister is rather…” The silence stretches so far that Robb fears it may swallow them. “Unreachable.”

Robb looks up then, away from Loras and his warnings and the thought of Sansa being so close and so far. His eyes find a hooded figure on a horse, sitting amongst the crowd, with downcast eyes and dark hair. And then he thinks that maybe he has had the wrong sister in mind, but then she looks up and it is nothing but blue and Sansa and blue.

All kingliness forgotten, he hurries towards her with strides long enough to cross all of Westeros. He doesn’t want to make a spectacle of them, because the Sansa who left Winterfell wouldn’t have wanted that. But then again, he imagines this Sansa doesn’t care at all.

The crowd of men and horses fall away. He reaches up without hesitation, to put his hands on the curves of her hips, and lifts her from the horse to the ground with no more effort than it took when they were small. But she feels different; she is softer and more feminine with a shape and curves and a body that her furs and dress can’t hide. He kissed a girl goodbye and now he is holding a woman, with snowflakes melting in her hair.

He holds her at arm’s length and she regards him with a somber expression.

He can think of nothing to do but pull her into him, to hold her by the small of her back and the nape of her neck. She is still as stone, and it is Robb that softens. His face goes from her forehead to her hair and then her neck and suddenly all of his weight is upon her. Only then does she reluctantly hold on to him, to support his weight as he crumbles before her and the guards and the gods and all the other ghosts.

In the silence of the courtyard, the only sound is his sob.

\---

Robb sends the maids away once she is dressed in her night gown. Sansa sits in bed, a white knuckle grip on the furs in her lap. Her long dark hair spills about her shoulders, her big blue eyes taking him in at a distance. There are a thousand unspoken words between them and yet silence is what prevails. Robb can’t escape the look she gives him. She is wary of him and it cuts like a knife.

He sits beside her on the bed and stares into the fire, holding his hands together so as not to reach for her.

“It’s late,” Sansa remarks quietly, after a long stretch of silence has passed. She looks exhausted, and he wonders if it’s from the long ride to Winterfell or his pathetic attempts to speak with her. She has had little to say since escaping his arms, offering only nods and shakes of her head.

Robb looks to her, wanting desperately to wrap her hair around his fingers or to kiss the back of her hand. “I know you must be tired. I won’t keep you awake,” he promises, making no move to go.

She does nothing but stare at him.

A wistful smile ghosts across his lips. He can’t stop himself from reaching for her hair and running a lock of it between his fingers. It is darker than he has ever seen it, but it still shines in the light. He really smiles then, the corners of his mouth pulling upward in a way that feels far from familiar.

“Robb,” she says gently, calling him back to her.

He looks up and sees the sadness in her face, and his smile falls away. “Your hair is so dark,” he murmurs.

“It will fade with time.”

He wonders if her pain will fade with time as well.

“What’s happened to you?” His voice is a whisper, but it is far from light. The words are heavy on his tongue, his throat thick.

Sansa looks away from him and her eyes find the fire. “A story for a different night.”

 His eyes follow hers, settling on the flames. He doesn’t press any further.

\---

She stands in the yard, looking at the sun. She twists her hands together and blinks hard in the light. Robb is unsure of her presence, if it is really Sansa staring into the sunlight or if it is someone else. She hardly seems herself these days. Sometimes, she doesn’t even answer to her own name.

Her return is some fresh sort of hell. Sansa is home, but his sister is dead. Her eyes are distant, her voice detached. She does little else besides take long walks with Grey Wind. She may as well be a million miles away.

And she is changed. Her hair is dark, as Arya’s would be, and her cheeks are hollow. She hardly speaks or smiles, and Robb can see scars sometimes when her sleeves fall in just the right way. She is a head taller, nearly as tall as he is, and a woman grown.

Sometimes he watches the way the tiny bones in her hands move as she wrings them together, or the way her hair shines auburn in the right light, even beneath the dark brown coloring. He wants to take her by the elbow, to lead her on all those long walks. He wants to stay the nervousness in her movements, or to kiss her forehead the way he did all those years ago.

Instead he watches from afar, looking at the girl who was once his sister as she stares straight into the sun.

\---

It isn’t long before he begins receiving ravens. He receives offer upon offer regarding Sansa’s hand in marriage, and he ignores every one of them. He rips them into pieces or burns them over an open flame. He tosses some into the fire and never opens others.

It gives him a new perspective on her. When he sees her in the halls, he notices the way her body is a delicate line, softly curving beneath her gown. The fabric sits tighter around her breasts, sometimes dipping low enough to glimpse the soft ivory skin there. Her hands are soft and delicate, often clasped together in front of her waist as she walks from one end of the castle to another. Her hips sway beneath her gowns, the fabric rustling at her feet. She speaks softly, thought not often, and her voice is a musical noise that floats in the air like a breeze.

He is certainly not the only one that notices. Eyes follow her wherever she goes. The guards steal glances, the smallfolk give her shy looks.  Her beauty does not go unnoticed, and sometimes he even hears them whispering about her. Envy is evident in the voices of the women, and desire is thick when he hears the men speak.

His little sister is the most desired woman in the seven kingdoms, and he likes it not.

\---

“Sansa?”

She stands in the doorway, the light barely touching her face. “I pushed him,” she says as though she were in the middle of explaining something, rather than speaking to him of her own accord for the first time in weeks. “I did it.”

Robb has hardly heard her voice at all since her return. He blinks in the dim light of his chamber, reaching towards her blindly. “Sansa, come sit,” he beckons, his voice heavy with sleep.

She doesn’t seem to hear him. “I pushed him through the Moon Door.”

He fumbles out of his furs and his feet hit the floor. He goes to her and pulls on her arms, drawing her into the blackness of his solar with him. They find the bed and she finds her voice, a rush of words about Petyr Baelish and being a bastard girl named Alayne. She explains the color of her hair, the scars on her skin, and the scars he can’t see. She talks about how the man that rescued her promised her truths and spoon fed her lies. She says most of it in a whisper, but when she tells him that it took being in a cage to realize she had claws, her voice is certain and strong.

He takes her hand and she jumps, but she doesn’t pull away.

\---

He struggles for words in her presence, as though he hadn’t been praying to her every night in her absence. He had lost his religion long ago, but Sansa had been some ghostly deity he had taken up instead.

The horrors he has seen number in the thousands, but speaking of Sansa’s suffering is some sort of fresh hell.  He wants to know more but he dare not ask. The little that she offers him makes bile rise in his throat, makes his stomach turn oily.

 _If I had been quicker…_ he thinks to himself, far too often. There is no going back, no righting wrongs. _Thoughts like that will drive you mad_ , he always counters. He never listens to himself when there is logic to be heard.

She doesn’t seem to mind the silence, hardly speaking much herself. There is an odd comfort in it, an all encompassing quiet that is reassuring. But the dead air leads to thinking, and the thinking brings him to the letters again and again.

He thinks of telling her. He wonders if she would want to know that she is wanted, by nearly everyone, but then he wonders if she would dwell more on what she is wanted for. He can’t fathom sending her away from him again. He certainly wouldn’t willingly send her into the arms of another man with promises of love and chivalry.

Of all the horrors he has come to know, the realization that Sansa is no longer a child he can protect may be the hardest to swallow.

\---

Robb wakes to her screams, as he does most nights. He leaps from bed and her screams become sobs, and then he has nothing to do but knock on her door and wait.

“Sansa, please,” he begs, rapping on her door. He can hear the crack in his voice, filled with his own desperation. “Let me in.”

He expects her to say she is fine, or to fall silent, or to assure him that she was only dreaming, like she always does. Instead he hears her voice, small and tremulous and choked with tears. “The door isn’t barred.”

It’s the closest thing to an invitation that he is like to get, so he takes it.

She is huddled on her bed, bundled in furs. Her face is streaked with tears, and in the candlelight, he can see the auburn coming through the roots of her hair. It makes his heart twist in a strange sort of way, to see the true color peeking through. A glimpse of the girl he once knew. The girl he failed.

He lingers by the door and they only stare at each other. There are a thousand unspoken words between them and yet silence is what prevails. Robb can’t escape the look she gives him. She is wary of him and it cuts like a knife.

Guilt creeps in, slow and consuming. He has no one to blame but himself.

She breaks the silence. “I apologize if I woke you.”

He shakes his head fiercely. “No, no.” He pauses. “I don’t sleep.”

“I’m glad he’s dead,” she says softly. “I would do it again.”

He kisses the backs of her hands and then the palms.

And then he does it again.

\---

There is one letter that Robb can’t ignore. Once he sees Sansa’s name in Margaery’s familiar handwriting, he crushes the letter in his fist and slams it against the table.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

\---

He can’t stay away, however hard he tries. His feet make the path to her room and back to his so frequently that he fears he may wear through the stone. He stands outside her door every night, listening and waiting and wanting. He never goes in.

The door is nearly always barred, except for when it isn’t. Curiosity seizes him once, when he sees light flickering from her room and into the dark hall. He steps to avoid the sliver of light and swallows hard as he goes to find her figure in the thin crack between the door and the frame.

She stands before the fire, long dark hair mingling with the natural auburn falling to the small of her back. The color of the flames intensifies when it finds her hair, and her pale skin glows.

The fire illuminates Sansa, shining right through the white shift of a nightgown. He can see her every outline, each curve painfully visible to him. The sight resonates within him, blood pooling where he wishes it wouldn’t.

He must make a sound because she glances to the crack in the door and holds her arms across her body protectively. “Robb?” Her voice is gentle, even hopeful for a reason he can’t imagine. “Is that you?”

He could kick himself for not keeping quiet, but there is nothing to be done. He knocks on the door, pretending to have just arrived instead of having been there all along.

Sansa gives the crack in the door a strange, wry smile, and he realizes there is no fooling her. “Come in, then.”

He enters slowly, drawing out his movements so as to get his blood flowing elsewhere.

“Bar the door,” she says, and he knows there’s no hope for him.

He does as he is told and then turns to her, unsure of what it is she wants. They stare at each other from across the room and he feels his skin growing hotter. He wishes it were because of the fire.

“You scared me,” she says, eyeing him. “Were you watching me?”

The lie doesn’t find him fast enough and he suspects Sansa knows the truth.  His throat his thick and his voice is strained. “Yes.”

She shrugs her shoulder and the gown slips down, falling away to expose the whiteness of her breast, peaked with pink , inviting him towards her, but he stays where he is. She drops to sit in her chair, never looking away from his eyes. She opens the nightgown and then slides it off her shoulders, opening herself to him as it falls about her waist. Her legs fall open lazily and she sinks low in her chair, her fingers finding their way to the pinkness between her thighs.

Her breath comes out slowly, long and even. “Are you only ever going to watch me?”

The walks to her is slow and dreamy, as if all the blood had left his head. He couldn’t speak if he tried, but it isn’t his words that she wants. He drops to his knees between her legs.

There are scars on the insides of her thighs, long and puckered and so visible against the whiteness of her skin. He takes on a steely expression, determined to appear unaffected. He won’t let her see the pain on his face, not when she has already felt every cut and gash and bruise. Instead, he pushes her hand away from the wetness, greedy to have it to himself.

He grips her thighs, holding them apart, even as she jumps at his first touch. He presses his mouth to a scar, the skin surprisingly smooth under his tongue. She sinks lower in her chair, spreading her legs as far as they will go. She sighs as his tongue creeps closer to her and her fingers loop in the curls atop his head.

“Robb,” she murmurs softly, tugging on his curls and pulling him harder against her. The gown slips to the floor, puddling in a pile of fabric at Sansa’s feet. Robb can see it all then, from her breasts to her ribs to her belly button, and all the scars that have made a home on his sister.

His stomach rolls at the sight, thinking of Sansa taking enough beatings to leave so many marks. He looks up at her, tongue on her cunt, but her eyes are closed and her expression soft. She is open mouthed and flushed, all pleasure and no pain.

The damage is long past done, and Sansa is capable of forgetting, if even for a moment.

He tries to forget too, licking her deep enough to spread her lips and feel the throb of her heartbeat against her core as she soaks his tongue. She is soft like velvet, and it occurs to him that this may be the only piece of her body that bears no scars. He’s thankful for that much, at least.

He goes from deep strokes to quicker, flicking licks when her back arches and she moans. She clutches him harder, her fingers digging into him. She pulls him closer, tensing suddenly as her breathing goes ragged. He keeps his tongue to her, feeling how wet she is as she comes undone. Her body goes rigid, everything clenching at once, whimpering.  And then she relaxes, the sweetest sigh escaping her lips.

He moves up her body, kissing her every inch of the way. Her ivory skin is flushed, pink and damp with sweat. Her chest moves evenly with deep breaths. He kisses the supple skin of her breasts, and then her collarbone.

She reaches for him, laying her hand on his chest as he leans over her to kiss her forehead, her hair matted to her temples.

Robb is no stranger to war, but Sansa’s body is the most beautiful battlefield he has ever seen.

\---

He finds Sansa in his solar, a crumpled letter in her hand. Her back is to him, but she turns to look at him from the corner of her eye, and he can see the tears in her eyes.

“When were you going to tell me?” She asks in an even voice, lifting Margaery’s letter.

The rage wells inside him again. He longs for a sword, for something to strike. But there is only Sansa and her broken expression. He may have won the war, he may be King in the North, but he still couldn’t protect her. And he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to.

“I will find a way to stop it,” he promises her. He approaches her like he would a caged animal, and then cautiously puts a hand on her hip. He almost draws her against him, he almost kisses her hair. Instead he moves his lips to her ear. “I will.”

“I don’t want to do it again,” she whispers. Her voice is barely there, pleading. Sansa left him as a delicate girl and returned to him a harder, sharper version of herself. But now, she is as she was: his little sister, begging him to fight the monsters back.  It is hard for him to believe that the girl before him is the girl who pushed Baelish out the Moon Door. “Don’t make me.”

He tightens his grip without meaning to, wrapping his arms around her and digging his fingers into the softness of her hips. He hears her whimper and he forces himself to be gentle, to be tender. She struggles in his grasp, shaking her head and making a soft, desperate noise in the back of her throat.

 “I will put a stop to this.”

A sob escapes her lips but she nods, sinking back against him, light as a feather. But her trust in him, despite everything, weighs on him like a block of lead.

\---

Robb finds her in the godswood, on her knees with her hands folded. Her head is bowed and her eyes closed, snowflakes catching in her hair. She doesn’t hear him approach. She is still as stone.

“What are you praying for?”

She must recognize his voice because she doesn’t jump. For once, she doesn’t seem startled.  She opens one eye, giving him a sideways glance as he comes to stand beside her. “You’re disrupting the peace of the godswood, my king.”

Her tone is teasing, but the title is one he never wants to hear her use. “Robb,” he corrects. “I am not your king.”

“Oh, but you are,” she says with a coy smile. It is good to hear the lightness in her voice. It isn’t often that it is there. She drops her hands and suddenly, she doesn’t look so pious. “Perhaps his Grace is in need of service?”

Before he can say a word, her hands are at his waist, undoing his breeches. Her movements are quick and self assured, as though the gods aren’t watching the two of them, as though they aren’t brother and sister.

Before long, he is in her hand, her fingertips running along the underside of his cock. Her touch is feather light and yet it shoots through him with a power far beyond anything he has ever experienced. His body jerks. She smiles up at him, all blue eyed and innocent.

“Is my king displeased?” She asks softly, drawing one fingertip up to the head, skimming it across the tip. “Perhaps I should stop.”

“Don’t you dare,” he grunts. “Don’t tease me, sister.”

“Tease?” She repeats, licking her lips and wrapping her delicate hand around the base. “I would never.”

He watches as she brings the tip of her tongue to the tip of his cock and then she pauses, looking up at him again.

“I only want to please you,” she says softly, her breath tickling him.

“Please, Sansa,” he begs, tired of waiting.

She raises an eyebrow, smiling. “What was that?”

“Please,” he groans.

She waits no more. She touches her tongue to the head and he feels her run it along the underside, all the way to the base, and then back to the tip before she takes it in her mouth. Her lips close around him, wet and shiny. She cups her hand around the shaft and moves it in time with her mouth, so she can attend to all of him at once.

His hand finds its way to her hair, gripping it tightly. He doesn’t care if the gods are watching; all his prayers have been answered.

He spends in her mouth and she swallows it, wiping the rest of it away with the back of her hand. Something about that is appealing to him and he can’t explain why. She can never seem to get enough and always wants as much of him as he can give.

She stands and straightens herself while he tries to remain upright with legs like water.

“I’m leaving on the morrow,” he tells her, knowing there is no better time. “To speak with Renly and Margaery.”

She nods.

\---

He leaves Sansa with a chaste kiss in the courtyard. Her tears are few but they are there, and they are not lost on Robb. 

She is beautiful, standing in the falling snow with a cold expression. She is wrapped tight in furs, her hair long and braided and auburn in its entirety at last. Her eyes are blue and emotionless, her eyelashes matted wetly with tears she has already shed. He knows she won’t cry any more, not where he can see.

Her grasp on him is iron tight. He doesn’t know whether she had cried in response to the possibility of another marriage should he fail her, or at the sight of him leaving her.

He makes a thousand promises to her, holding her tight, swearing to put it all back together. She nods at him, a sort of loose, wary belief in her eyes.  He knows there is no choice but to leave her, to try to fix the horrendous situation he has inadvertently put her in. He refuses to be the reason for her suffering once again.

He mounts his horse, nodding to her before leaving her far behind him, standing in the snow.

He prays it will be the last time he must leave her.

\---

He says it all, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. He pleads with Margaery, begs her. She not only listens but hears, and still it seems to do no good.

She explains the importance of the situation to him as though he does not fully grasp just exactly why she wants his sister to marry her brother. He understands and he has no sympathy, not even because she is trying to protect her sibling.

“I thought you would support this,” she says gently. “I see the love you bear for your sister, and thus you must understand the love I have for Loras.”

“She has spent her fair share of time being a pawn in the capital. I wouldn’t ask her to do it again.” His voice is firm, his expression steely. He is determined to sway her, even if it means pushing.

“I do not take this proposal lightly. This is safety for Sansa, safety for Loras.”

“Safety?” Robb laughs, for the first time in a very long time. It is dry and humorless. He’s surprised dust doesn’t roll from his throat in a cloud. “A charade to cover for your brother’s…preference for your king is not what Sansa needs.”

“What does she need, Robb? A nice husband in the North? The promise of a marriage free of trouble? No wandering eyes, no hard hands or harsh words?”

He hears her implication. No man will ever be good enough for Sansa in Robb’s eyes.

“What can you give her?” She presses. She is answered with silence. “I can give her a marriage free of expectation, where she can spend time with whoever she pleases however she chooses to. Loras will be discreet, and she will do the same. Loras will never treat her harshly and she will certainly never want for anything, whether it be safety or security or station.”

It sounds empty to him, however pleasantly she may put it. Margaery certainly seemed to be doing well for herself, but he couldn’t see Sansa in her place. More than that, he didn’t want that for her. “I realize that your position is not common, and you are happier for it, but you are not Sansa.”

“And how certain are you that she couldn’t be as I am?” She raises her brow. “We don’t always know where our paths will take us, but Sansa must be quite adaptive. She has had her share of torment. I fear you underestimate her.”

Robb shakes his head. “She is capable. But she belongs with me. She wants to stay in the North, where I can protect her.”

 “Can you?”

Her question is haunting.

\---

He tries once more, just before his departure for home. He lays out a thousand different scenarios with different marriages and all the same outcome: a cover for Loras and a happiness for all those involved.

But Margaery speaks of singed parchments and a mutual benefit and a strengthening of the relationship between the North and the South. He sees why Renly needs her. She is singularly driven when she wants something.

“Tell me, Robb. Will you ever let her go again?”

He flexes his sword hand, having had his fill of hypothetical situations, demands, and questions he cannot answer.

“If she finds a man she could be happy with, if she’s in love, will you let her go then? Or will you keep her by your side forever, trying to right wrongs from a lifetime ago? You can’t fix what’s been done. It’s too late. She is not your child, nor is she your wife. You will have to let go eventually.”

“She will be happy here,” Margaery says, her tone final. She smiles, despite his look of despair. “But I will compromise with you. There is time. Perhaps we wait several months. We should allow Sansa to carve out her own sort of happiness for herself. Should Sansa find a husband of her own choosing, I won’t press this matter any further.”

Robb’s back had gone stiff, as though a steel rod had replaced his spine. He flexes his sword hand, restless.  “And if she doesn’t?”

“Then she will marry Loras. And she will be happy here.” She smiles again. “I want happiness for your sister, however she should find it.”

It bought him months, if nothing else, but the pit in his stomach was ever present. He cannot face the truth. He will have to surrender her to someone else, and even though it could be someone of her choosing, a man she could love, he likes it no better. He knows he is jealous and he hates himself for it, but he hates the idea of anyone else’s hands on her far more.

“But she will marry,” Margaery tells him gently. “Even if you like it not.”

 _She is not your wife._ Margaery’s words fill Robb’s head, resoundingly clear. He would do well to remember them.

\---

Robb has no explanation for Sansa. He knows nothing will be enough. He can’t keep making promises just to fail her in the end. He tries to make light of it, repeats Margaery’s words between difficult attempts to comfort her. He puts his arms around her, feeling her stiff as a statue in his arms.

“You’re a king,” she says finally, with a heartbreaking tone of final hope. “You could order me to stay here. With you.”

He knows what he has to say. He knows that last thing she wants to hear from him is the excuse of politics, but it is all he has. “You know I can’t.”

She looks at him and truly sees him. He feels her gaze boring into him and he knows that she sees a man playing at king, with little to no power where it really matters. He is more than a disappointment and a failure. He is a liar, spewing false promises and spoon feeding her illusions of protection and safety in her own home.

Her voice is even and resigned. “Worry not, brother. I have become accustomed to disappointment.”

She shakes him off and forces herself out of his arms, heading for the door with quick, sure strides.

“Sansa,” he calls after her, meekly.

She stops at the door, her hand on the bar. She doesn’t even turn to look at him. “Don’t,” she says sternly, with a quiver of something in her voice. “There is no comfort for me. Do not force me to let you try.”

Her words cut him like a knife. He lets her go.

\---

She refuses to speak to him, and she never allows him to see her. He busies himself with the managing of Winterfell, playing king and donning the crown when he must. He feels a fool in it, unable to be king when it counts. He can’t say no to Sansa’s marriage, he can’t order her to stay. He must cooperate with the very throne he was seeking independence from. He may be a king, but the title is the majority of it.

His desperation for her backs him into a corner, drives him to a last ditch effort to bring her to him. He summons her to the throne room, where she is delivered to him by his guards. He sits on his throne, pretending to have authority over whatever it is he has left, even if it is Sansa.

They walk her to him, down the long hall, until she is beneath the dais right at his feet. He dismisses the guards immediately, watching them exit the room, their clunky armor rattling. Sansa eyes their departure before looking back up at him.

“Was the show with the guards so necessary?” She asks.

“Would you have come otherwise?”

She ignores his question. “Where is your crown? If you’ve decided to play my king today, the role is not complete without it.”

“I am your brother, though you seem to have forgotten. I only want to see you.” He bites the inside of his cheek. “By whatever means necessary.”

“Forgive me, my king, for I am confused. My brother, my king, my lover.  I cannot keep up. Shall I curtsy, or fall to my knees?”

 “Sansa, please.”

“You act as though I am punishing you, when _I_ am the one suffering!” Her voice echoes in the hall, harsh and loud. “And to have me dragged to you, delivered at your feet. How low must you sink?”

He drags his hand down his face, rubbing his eyes. “I shouldn’t have, I know. But I want to be with you and you won’t have me.”

She shakes her head and laughs, and he sees the tears in her eyes that threaten to spill over. “You’re a fool.”

He may have months with her still, but he has lost her already.

She turns to leave, fussing at her eyes.

He stands up from his charade of a throne and calls after her. “You will not walk away from me!”

He regrets it the second he says it, but impulse and anger and hopelessness know no reason.

She doesn’t go any further. She stays where she is, with her back to him, halfway to the door. “Write to the queen and tell her I will marry her brother.”

His anger fades and he chases her down the hall, grabbing her by the wrist and reeling her back to him. She is cold as ice. She balls her fist and looks away from him, leaving him gripping a girl who is struggling to maintain her distance, even in his arms. “Don’t do this,” he pleads.

“Why shouldn’t I marry him?” She asks, tears running down her face, streaking her cheeks. She looks at him then; her gaze accuses him of all he knew was guilty of.  “He was the one who saved me, after all.”

_He loves someone else. The king. You would be a pawn again. You would be a curtain to shield Loras. You would be leaving me._

 “It was you I prayed for. It was you I waited for. I only wanted you.”

“I thought you were dead!” He wants to shake her. He wants to kiss her.

“I wish I were,” she grits, struggling in his grasp. “Please, Robb. You’re hurting me.”

 He releases her wrist and grasps her by the waist instead, keeping his grip loose.  He pulls her hips to his. He grabs her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “There is time still. I could find you a husband. A good man.”

She shakes her head. “I will marry Loras. If I must marry, it is my decision. I want to leave Winterfell.” Robb only hears, _I want to leave you._ “He’s a truer knight than you ever were.”

“I’m no knight,” Robb spits. “I am a king. I am your king.”

Sansa’s eyes narrow, pushing tears over the edge. If looks could kill, he would be done for. “My apologies, Your Grace.”

She turns to go and this time, he makes no move to stop her.

\---

Weeks later, when she retires to her chambers for the night, Robb is already sitting in the great chair by her fire, waiting for her.

She tenses, lingering in the doorway. “Your Grace.”

“Robb,” he insists.

She tightens her furs around her. She clutches her own shoulders, arms crossed protectively. Her eyes are hard and she looks as though she has been crying. “And who are you today? My lover? My king?”

“Your brother,” he says. “And your lover. And your king.”

“Is it possible to be all three at once?”

Robb stands then. “Sansa, come inside.”

She narrows red rimmed eyes at him. “Is that a request from my brother, or an order from my king?”

“I only want to speak with you,” he explains, his desperation clear as a bell. “I want to apologize. I want to say goodbye to my sister before I write to the queen.”

She hesitates, looking into the hall and then at Robb and into the hall again. Then she steps inside and bars the door. She walks a few more steps, stopping before him, and gives him an expectant look.

“Won’t you sit?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Very well,” he concedes. He takes her hands and presses them to his chest, the way she had gripped him before. “Sansa, you know I love you. Not like a brother should. More than a brother should.”

She looks away from him, blinking rapidly. She tightens her hands into fists so they’re no longer splayed across his chest. “I can’t do this,” she chokes out. He can hear how thick her throat has become. “I can’t marry again. I can’t be a wife.”

He puts his hand on the back of her head and draws her to his chest. She gives in and stops fighting him, letting her body go soft against his. He holds her up, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I will find someone for you. Someone gentle and strong. Someone to love you. But I need time. I won’t have you sent away from me, marrying a man who prefers the company of other men.”

She cries harder at that, resuming her struggle. She pushes away from him, stumbling backward. She wraps her arms around herself, doubling over and letting out the most heart wrenching sob. She fights Robb as he pulls her up and helps her to stand. The onslaught of tears begins to thin as he wipes them away with the pad of his thumb and smoothes her hair.

“I will fix this,” he says.

She looks up at him though inky, wet eyelashes and shakes her head. “You will write the queen and I will marry Loras.”

Robb takes her hands again and drops to one knee, prepared to plead with her. He looks up at her, tightening the grip on her hands. “Must I beg you to stay with me?”

“And then what, Robb?” she asks angrily. “I will marry and stay in Winterfell and be your mistress? I’ll sleep with my brother, let him spend inside me? I’ll grow fat with child, wondering who it belongs to? I pretend to be happy with a life of secrecy? And will you take a wife? Will you pretend it is me you’re inside when you must couple with her? Will she suspect me, your dutiful sister?”

He hadn’t thought that far. He hadn’t been able to think past her leaving him alone in the world.

“No. I must leave.” She looked down at him. “You must let me.”

He buries his head in her skirts, balling his fists in the fabric.  “Don’t leave me, Sansa.”

She lays a hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair. For a moment, it is nothing but peace and quiet. A brother and a sister.

But then Robb is tearing at her skirts and delving beneath the layers and layers she has on. He goes for her cunt mouth first, spreading her legs, but instead she pulls him up and pushes him until he falls back into her chair. He doesn’t play a fool, doesn’t bother letting her see his surprise. He is busy frantically baring himself in time for her to take him in her, sitting on his lap quite differently from how she did when she was little.

She sinks down on him and he pushes farther in, watching as her eyelids flutter and she gasps. He has never been inside her before, and he fears he never will be again. She sets a steady, even pace, up until he takes control, bucking beneath her. She guides her with his hands on her hips and bites his lip to keep from groaning her name.

He is careless and he finishes inside her after she chokes his name, sounding on the verge of ecstasy or tears.

\---

When her moon blood doesn’t come, she tells him in steady voice. Robb trembles when he takes her hand, pleading with her once more to stay. To raise their child in their childhood home, even if it must be another man who claims to be the father.

She won’t hear of it.

\---

He kisses her, standing in the courtyard. It is a brotherly kiss. It is less brotherly the way he presses a hand to her still flat stomach, pleading with the gods to deliver his child healthy and safe without complication. He cups her cheeks, willing his warmth to fill her and their baby within her. He smoothes her hair, he kisses her nose.

And then he sends her away.

\---

He is invited to the wedding, of course.  He hears talk of the couple’s haste. As in love as they are, neither can bear to wait. It is yet another bond to strengthen the relationship between the King in the North and the King on the Iron Throne. Sansa will be a glorious bride, everyone says.

He knows they are right.

But he cannot bear it and he cannot leave Winterfell. _There must always be a Stark in Winterfell,_ his father had said. _What would he think of us?_ The final two Stark children. The eldest who were destined for greatness, who had both had the world at their feet. What would he think if he knew that Sansa may have left Robb weeks ago, but she appeared in his dreams nightly, mouth on his cock?

_What would he think if he could see my heir, growing fast in my sister’s stomach?_

\---

Margaery writes to him soon after, describing the whole affair. It was beautiful, as he knew it would be. Sansa was glowing, Loras was proud. Robb can see all the finely strung lies, sitting together in lines of Margaery’s beautiful handwriting.

And then there are truths. Painful ones that Margaery has learned.

_Your words from months ago are very clear to me still. Your determination to keep her by your side makes far more sense to me now than before. I understand, just as I understand Sansa’s race to set the wedding into motion._

_Sansa will be a splendid mother, and I know Loras has always wanted to be a father._

\---

Robb thinks of marrying, if only to have someone to warm his bed at night. He entertains the idea for several weeks, and then he thinks of what it would mean for the woman he took as his wife. She would be lovely, he knew, but he also knew how cold she would be, living in Sansa’s shadow. Worse, he would be cold to her, though he may never mean to be. He would long for his sister. He may groan her name in the throes of passion. There would be no fooling the woman he married and so he pushed the idea away and never considered it again.

\---

Sansa does not write so Robb does. He asks to see her, praying that Sansa longs for him as much as he does for her. At the very least, he suspects she might miss home, and that may be enough to bring her back to him, however temporary.

It is Margaery who responds. He learns of how large Sansa grows. He reads of Loras’s excitement in her fine script. She makes excuses for his sister. The queen says that Sansa is wary of travel with the growing babe in her womb. She adds that she has been so busy, preparing for the child’s arrival.

 _Sansa has hardly had time to sit, let alone write back,_ Margaery explains.

When the child is born, he hears about it mostly from gossip. First he learns the child is red haired as can be, chubby and angelic. He has clear blue eyes, taking after Sansa far more than Loras, and he seems to have a clear preference for his mother.

“Children are often that way when they are fresh,”an older, gray woman from his staff tells him when she shares what she knows. “They know where the milk comes from.”

Learning the name of his boy is the hardest to hear. Ned, the couple has decided.

Robb takes all of Margaery’s letters ad sits them in a stack on the table in his chambers. He sits and lights a candle before he takes each piece of parchment to the flame, watching them go up in smoke.

Robb lets himself cry that night.

\---

There is no good way for Robb to spend the energy pent up inside him. For a stretch, he takes servant girls into his bed. When he bores of one, he takes another. There seems to be an endless supply, all of them gentle and pliant and willing. He takes a liking to one, a simple girl with bright red hair and clear blue eyes.  

Robb always finds himself fingering the smooth locks of her hair after he has collapsed beside her.  He inspects it in the candlelight, watching the flames reflect on the strands. She is a sweet, easy girl, and he brings her to his bed again and again. He doesn’t ask her to leave after, as he does with the others.

He knows it isn’t her that he likes, but who she reminds him of.

When she tells him that her name is Mia, he stomach twists and he feels the façade shattering around him. Mia is very real, and she is not Sansa. He can’t pretend that she is his sister.

He hates her voice. When she tries to speak of things, her voice cuts on him like shards of glass. He can’t stand her mundane chatter or the way she is so desperate to reach into his soul and discover what it is that ails him.

He typically ignores her or pretends not to hear what she says. Once, by accident, he calls her _Sansa_ and the look in her eyes is disbelief, and then understanding. It seems to settle over her like a wet blanket, chilling her to the bone.

That night, he asks her to leave and tells her he will not be wanting her again.

\---

He grows like a weed, Margaery says. He is a quick learner and loves the sound of steel in the yard. Sansa babies him, she says, but Loras wants him to be a fine swordsman.

He thinks of Loras Tyrell, bouncing Ned on his knee. He hates Loras and his ridiculous title, the Knight of _Flowers._ He thinks of Ned, growing fast, and how Loras may teach him to joust. Robb had no appreciation for the sport. Since the war, playing with at some staged battle left a sour taste in his mouth.

So much time passes that Robb struggles to remember the sound of Sansa’s sigh, the smell of her  sweetness on his lips, the smoothness of her thighs. He wants to see their son, and to teach him to swing a real sword.

Robb prays, for the first time in a very long time, to see Sansa again. He prays to see his son. He prays that he will have a chance to teach Ned to be a noble man, like his grandfather had been.

He spends far too much of his time and energy wishing for things that aren’t meant for him.

Sometimes, he prays for darker things. For accidents. For poison. For scandal. Anything to bring Sansa and their child back to him. He’s given up on being a good man. He hasn’t been good since the war. He won’t pretend that he is pious or religious or pure. He’s had his sister’s mouth on his cock, his mouth on her cunt, his baby in her belly.

His desperation festers in him, ugly and oozing and sour.

\---

He dreams of her as though she is freshly returned to him, back when her hair had still been dark and her bones prominent. She wanders the castle listlessly with her hands folded together and her steps small and uncertain. He had watched her so often back then, waiting for something to break her into pieces. The line of her body had been so stiff and hard.

His unnatural fascination with her had started then, longing for his lost childhood and seeking it deep within her. He had tried to fight it. He pushed it out of his thoughts though it never seemed to leave. It sat in the darkest recesses of his mind, waiting for that day when he had seen her in her nightgown before the fire.

If he had remained her brother that day and kept his distance, perhaps happiness would be easier to find.

\---

There is a long stretch where he hears nothing of Sansa or the babe. Margaery stops writing and Sansa never starts.

Weeks pass before he hears. Loras took a bad spill from a horse and though the maester can set his leg, he cannot seem to quell the infection. All he learns of his sister and his child is that Sansa sits with her husband all hours of the day and that Ned is fussy and hard to settle.

His energy is easy to channel then. He picks up a sword and goes to the yard, swinging at any who dare try him. It does not take long for the men to decide that Robb is still dangerous, not to be trifled with, and then he is forced to hack away at the wooden silhouette of a man he practiced on very long ago. He pictures Loras Tyrell at the receiving end of his sword, all bruised and broken.

He prays as he swings, hoping for the Tyrell boy to die. He wants his sister back. He wants to see his son. He wonders if she truly sits with him. He wonders if she grieves. He is certain there is no romantic love there, but maybe there is a friendship. Robb is jealous as the same.

When he is finished, his hand is blistered and his arm is tired. Robb wishes for a proper fight, or something to make his blood sing and rid him of frustration as well as his nights with Sansa poised beneath him had.

\---

Margaery writes at last. Her tone is somber, her sentences clipped. She speaks of sending Sansa  to her late husband’s birthplace, where her son will be Lord of Highgarden. Robb’s heart clenches and he skims the rest, catching _your sister_ and _home_ and _Winterfell._

His hands shake as he tries to hold the letter steady, and he manages to keep still just long enough to read the last line.

_I am sending your sister back to you; now I know your pain._

\---

He receives her alone, just like before. She is returned to him wearing all black, long auburn hair unbound and swirling in the wind. If not for the mourning colors, he wouldn’t know she was grieving. No tears mark Sansa’s face and there is color in her cheeks.

She descends from the litter in a swirl of black fabric and fur. Her hair lifts in the wind, like some sort of rosy halo. She looks a queen then, far better than he had ever thought of Margaery even in her finest silks. Better still, there is a bundle in Sansa’s arms, shielded from the cold.

There is nothing else that matters then and he is striding to her, catching her by the shoulder. He draws her to him, as closely as he can with the babe in her arms. He takes her by surprise and he hears her gasp. He had forgotten what it sounded like and he nearly weeps into her hair.

He holds it in, Sansa grips him back, and the babe wails for both of them instead.

\---

He had thought he had struggled with being Sansa’s brother, her lover, and her king, but it was nothing between being a father and an uncle. The lines blurred too easily and he often felt as though he were overstepping. Sansa always watched him with Ned warily, eyes darting to see if those who passed by took anything as strange.

They rarely got a second look, and when they did, it was servant girls who liked to coo at Ned and tell Sansa what a beautiful baby he was. The praise always stung Robb, knowing he was merely an uncle here and always would be.

Worse still was knowing how close Sansa was and yet feeling as though she were still in King’s Landing. She retired to her chambers early every night, taking Ned with her. Occasionally he would venture to her door, knock gently, and wait. But there was never any light to be seen through the crack at the bottom and it was always silent and still. He always gave in, accepting that she was asleep, and made the long walk back to his room.

Once, he wakes to Ned’s crying and goes to Sansa’s room again. For the first time in a long time, there is light coming through the crack in the door and he can hear the slow pace of Sansa’s feet, the drag of her gown on the floor. He hears his sister whispering sweet nothings to his son, her voice as dreamy and clear as it had been back when she sang and dreamt of knights.

He only stands and listens that night, his heart aching.

\---

He waits in a darkened hall for her, knowing he can catch her on her way to break her fast while the wet nurses tend to Ned.

He hears her footsteps coming, echoing off the stone. The closer she comes, the faster his heart pounds. When she is upon him, he reaches out blindly, grabbing her by the skirt and pulling her into the darkness with him. She gasps in surprise, clutching back at him as he puts a flat hand to her stomach and backs her against a wall.

“Robb,” she breathes, relieved and surprised.

He puts a finger to her lips and silences her with a soft sound, but she protests.

“Someone will see us,” she whispers anxiously. “Don’t.”

He shakes his head. “There is no one to hear. Only the two of us.”

She lays a hand against his chest. It is both affectionate and distancing. She looks down at the light that falls between them. “You should try to be my brother, Robb. However difficult, you must try. For Ned.”

He shakes his head. “Sansa…”

“For our son.”

“I can’t.” He rests his cheek against Sansa’s forehead, leaving a line of kisses from the top of her head to her chin. “I miss you.”

She looks at him, eyes glazed and lips parted. She lets out a deep breath.

He lifts her up then, hiking up her skirts and wrapping her legs around him. She clings to him, folding into him. He frees himself from his own small clothes and pushes into her with little hesitation. She cries out and then clamps her own hand against her mouth.

He thrusts into her against the wall. He is shaky and she is tight and it doesn’t last long.

He intends never to go that long without her again.

\---

It is early in the morning when he hears Sansa singing. It is strange to his ears. At first, he hardly recognizes it. He can’t even remember the last time he heard Sansa’s voice so high and clear.

He chases the sound to her solar and finds her holding Ned against her shoulder, patting his back. There is a gentle bounce in her step and from where Robb stands, he can see the corner of her mouth, which pulls upward. A sweet sight.

She makes a slow circle, coming around the face him as she bounces Ned to soothe him. She smiles at Robb then and it is true and genuine. She holds her finger to her lips and then beckons him by crooking it. He approaches them slowly and softly, careful not to wake their babe, who is falling asleep fast.

He lays a gentle hand on Sansa’s shoulder and presses a kiss to her forehead, and then a kiss to the very top of Ned’s head where his hair is so soft and thin. Robb breathes in their scent, powdery and clean. He closes his eyes and thinks he could stay in this moment forever.

“I could take him,” he says softly. “Just long enough for you to rest.”

She hesitates. He knows that she doesn't want him to get too close or too comfortable. _Too fatherly,_ he thinks.  But she hands their son to him and Robb thinks he might burst. He tries not to hold too tightly or too loosely and he worries that he isn’t supporting his head enough, but Sansa doesn't seem to worry at all. She falls back in her bed and closes her eyes, her breathing finding a deep and steady rhythm in no time at all.

It may not be perfect and it may not be what he pictured, but it is enough.

For now. 


End file.
